A Seattle Supersonics fan dressed as Bigfoot is seen during a game between Gonzaga and Kentucky at Climate Pledge Arena on Dec. 7, 2024, in Seattle. (Tribune News Service)
By Jerry Brewer Washington Post
SEATTLE – The torment returned on the most gorgeous day of the year thus far. In a city that dawdles into summertime, the temperature reached 81 degrees last Wednesday. It was the first 80-degree day of 2025, and when the Pacific Northwest is blessed with a May surprise, the people-watching is as delightful as the sunshine.
An old man wore a Speedo and sunbathed in the park at Green Lake. No one cared. On an outdoor basketball court, players paused and offered tips to a local television reporter about handling the heat. It felt like every neighborhood was hosting an impromptu festival. Seattle, which doesn’t experience long stretches of warm weather until July, knows it shouldn’t take these days for granted.
And then it happened that night. The Thunder, the team in Oklahoma City formerly known as the Seattle SuperSonics, advanced to the NBA Finals for the second time since it relocated 17 years ago. Unlike in 2012, when LeBron James and the Miami Heat cruised to the title in five games, there may be no way to stop this Thunder. After a 68-14 regular season, it is four victories from both a championship and recognition as a historically great team.
“It’s like you went through a bitter divorce, and now they’re making you watch your ex get married,” said Mike Gastineau, an author and retired sports radio host who moved to Seattle in 1991, just in time for the rise of Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp and Coach George Karl.
Talk to 10 Seattleites about the Sonics, and you will receive 10 different statements about how they’re feeling right now. Time has dulled some of the strongest emotions, but the pain is chronic. The flare-ups are frequent. People can go from angry to sad to petty to depressed to optimistic about the possibility of a team returning through NBA expansion. But there is one unifying desire: to fully separate the Sonics’ history from the Thunder’s present.
There is no Seattle/Oklahoma City franchise that spans 58 seasons. There are the Sonics, an expansion team that became Seattle’s first modern-era major pro franchise in 1967, redefining the sports aspirations of the city. And there is the Thunder, pillaged from Seattle and renamed in 2008, which has turned into a model small-market organization and featured three MVPs (Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) during an enviable 17-year run.
For all the pain that still exists, Seattle accepted the reality long ago. It will never forget the joy or the drama or the heist. It will never forgive the people who contributed to a perfect storm of villainy, carelessness and incompetence that led to the team’s departure The list includes late NBA commissioner David Stern, former owner Howard Schultz, former mayor Greg Nickels, current Thunder chairman Clay Bennett and a host of civic and political characters whose arrogance expedited the relocation.
While the most ardent Sonics fans despise Oklahoma City, they’re far more interested in a franchise comeback. But the notion of a shared history keeps poking at their rage.
“There’s a disassociation after all these years,” said Donald Watts Jr., a skills coach and former University of Washington star whose father, Slick Watts, was among the most popular players in Sonics history. “I enjoy watching how Oklahoma City plays. I just want a team, and I want the Sonics back. And that’s all that matters – until they flash on TV that the last time they won a championship was 1979. I get a pit in my stomach every time I hear anything about a historical tie.”
For now, those memories are all that remains of the Sonics. Let people remember with authenticity.
It’s mostly an issue of how the national media frames the relationship. Seattle and OKC have distanced themselves. Their messy divorce resulted in shared custody of the Sonics’ history. The Bennett group owns the trademarks for the Sonics’ name, logo and branding, but when OKC and the city of Seattle agreed to a $45 million settlement for the team to break its KeyArena lease in 2008, Bennett promised to give it all back if a franchise returns to Seattle.
The Sonics’ most treasured memorabilia – such as the 1979 championship trophy, banners and retired jerseys – are stored in Seattle, most of it at the Museum of History & Industry. Bennett, who has called the items “assets,” can copy and display the items for the Thunder. But OKC does not actively promote the Sonics’ history.
There’s so much bad blood, but the cities coexist as respectfully as possible. There is no relationship, especially now. Durant, who played in Seattle, is long gone. So is Westbrook, who was drafted and introduced in Seattle shortly before the team skipped town. Durant and Jeff Green are the only active former Sonics still in the NBA. It has been a long, long time.
Still, it hurts.
I was a 30-year-old columnist at the Seattle Times, still trying to figure out the city as well as my own voice, when the goodbye became official. It was July 2, 2008. It was one of those painful moments that deepened my connection to the city and forced me to take a mature look at the cold business practices of professional sports teams.
After an ugly trial over the lease, everyone was waiting for U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman to deliver a verdict on whether the team would have to honor the two remaining years on the KeyArena lease. Before she could rule, word came of a settlement. It was a day as beautiful as this past Wednesday. And then the Sonics went dark.
“Every year in July, those old feelings come back,” said Kevin Calabro, the beloved former Sonics play-by-play announcer who now calls Portland Trail Blazers games. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve done a lot of self-examination. What did you do? Did you throw yourself onto the tracks to stop it? I was so in disbelief. I just thought something would happen to stop it.”
There was nothing Calabro could do. There was nothing anyone could do. Only billionaires and elected officials not obsessed with sports could have changed the outcome. The team’s fate was decided when Schultz sold the franchise for $350 million to Oklahoma businessmen in July 2006. Nineteen years later, the Thunder is estimated to be worth at least 10 times that amount. And depending on how the Thunder manages the salary cap, it could win multiple championships.
“It’s like we had this big fight and we didn’t get to take a swing,” Gastineau said. “It’s like we’re a part of somebody else’s story. That’s the hardest part.”
It has been a strange 17 years because hope of a revival has persisted the entire time. When the team first left, many dreamed of a situation similar to what happened after Charlotte lost its team to New Orleans in 2002. Two years later, it had a new franchise.
In the 2008 separation agreement between the city and the OKC ownership group, Bennett agreed that his partners would pay Seattle an additional $30 million with an interesting stipulation. If the city approved funding to renovate KeyArena by the end of 2009 and the NBA didn’t grant Seattle a team by 2013, the restitution would be paid. In essence, it was a challenge from Bennett: Get your act together, and I’ll have a $30 million incentive to convince the NBA to find you a new team.
For fans, it introduced the possibility of a five-year timeline. But no plan materialized to renovate KeyArena in the 17 months Bennett gave the city.
Throughout the past 17 years, the carrot always has dangled. Hedge fund manager Chris Hansen emerged and gained traction with a plan to build a new arena south of downtown, next to the stadiums where the Seahawks and Mariners play. In 2013, he even reached a deal with the Maloof family to buy the Sacramento Kings, with plans to move them to Seattle. But the NBA’s board of governors rejected the effort to relocate the team, and the team was eventually sold to Vivek Ranadive. As a result, Hansen’s arena plan stalled.
Then came the successful process to renovate KeyArena. In 2018, the Oak View Group led the privately financed project, and three years and $1.15 billion later, the Sonics’ outdated home transformed into Climate Pledge Arena. Its primary tenant is the Kraken, an NHL expansion team that began play in 2021. Led by Samantha Holloway, the hockey investment group now leads the city’s ambitions for a Sonics return. She speaks of when, not if.
When asked, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver keeps moving closer to announcing that the league will formally study the possibility. For now, it’s still just a hope. Remarkably, even as the void approaches two decades, there’s still palpable enthusiasm at the slightest mention of an NBA reunion.
“I’m just amazed by the profile the Sonics still have,” said Gastineau, who has hosted or attended many events in which hundreds and on occasion thousands gather to hear legendary figures speak and rally support for the team’s return. “For all the animosity, most of the time it’s just about wearing the green and gold, being together, keeping the memory alive and showing there’s still unbelievable passion. It’s one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever seen.”
Slick Watts, the dedicated Sonics ambassador who turned his headband into a fashion statement, died in March at 73. He suffered a major stroke four years ago and never returned to the spry, effervescent personality who embodied the swagger of the franchise. He’s one of many Sonic legends from the 1970s who have passed in recent years.
As he took care of his father, Donald Jr. motivated Pops with two thoughts: attending the NBA draft if Isaiah Watts, his grandson who now plays at Maryland, keeps improving. And, of course, watching the return of the Sonics.
“The Sonics are coming back,” the son would say during a tough day at rehab. “Are we going to be courtside? You trying to be there?”
With an enthusiasm only Slick could deliver, he would reply: “Yeah! S—-!”
He yearned for as long as he could.
That courtside dream belongs to his son and grandchildren now. His basketball resilience is their inheritance. Much like the city, they mourn with hope.